Apple’s new iPhone is what techies call a “convergence” device, meaning it combines several functions. But even with the iPhone, convergence often means compromise.

Available for sale for the first time Friday night, the iPhone combines a cell phone with a personal digital assistant, an iPod music and video player and an Internet device that can check e-mail and surf the Web.

The gadget does a good job combining those features, and many of them include neat innovations. But the iPhone’s ability to do any of those particular features comes up short compared with devices that specialize in them.

Take the phone feature, arguably the device’s primary purpose. (It’s in the name, after all!) It’s easy to set up a conference call or to place a call on hold while you answer another. There’s even a button to allow you to quickly access your contacts while you’re on the phone, something I’ve never been able to figure out how to do on my Motorola Razr phone.

And because the iPhone easily syncs with your computer’s address book, you can have all your contacts with you. That’s one feature I wish my Razr had, because it seems to always have an outdated number for one of my friends.

But one notable feature the iPhone is missing is voice dialing. I’m frequently frustrated by the voice dialing on my Verizon phone – I find myself shouting at it that I meant it to call “Stacy,” not “989.” But when it works, it comes in handy, particularly when I’m driving and can’t concentrate on trying to dial in a number or find the right contact in my address book – which is exactly what I’d have to do on the iPhone.

Another problem I had with using the iPhone as a phone is its shape. Yes, yes, the iPhone is beautiful and sleek. But it just doesn’t feel like a phone in my hands; it feels a little too wide and bulky, particularly when I put it up to my ear to talk.

I know, you’re supposed to use the iPhone with a headset, but if you’re like me, you frequently don’t have a headset with you. In fact, the iPhone reminds me in some ways of the original BlackBerry pagers: You could talk into them like they were phones, but you really didn’t want to.

I’ve been using various Palm PDA devices for years, but I’ve been looking to replace them with a smart-phone of some kind. Similar to Palm devices, you can add and update address-book and calendar entries on your iPhone and have those reflected on your computer when you sync it.

But it wasn’t entirely clear whether or how you can sync an iPhone to more than one computer. Apple’s customer support says you can, but when I tried it, I ended up deleting the data already on the iPhone in favor of what was on the second computer I synced it to.

Being able to sync with more than one computer is crucial to me because I have mirrored versions of my contacts and calendars at the office and at home, and I update both frequently but separately.

As far as playing music and videos goes, the iPhone has a lot to like. It’s got the biggest, brightest screen yet on an Apple portable media player. I’m not a big fan of watching movies on portable devices – I tried watching “Spider-Man 2” on a PSP once and ended up with strained eyes and a cramped neck. But the screen on the iPhone is so beautiful that I’d consider trying it again.

But I immediately had some frustrations using the iPhone as an iPod. Every day I drive to work, I listen to podcasts I’ve downloaded to my iPod on my car stereo system. But the Belkin adapter that charges my iPod and connects with my stereo wouldn’t work with the iPhone. What’s more, the headphone jack on the iPhone is so recessed into the device that I couldn’t simply plug a line into the jack to connect it directly to my car stereo.

Apple says you can buy a separate adapter to fix the headphone problem, and it promises many existing iPod accessories are iPhone-compatible. But it acknowledges that many aren’t, meaning you may need to buy new ones.

Since I first started testing out the iPhone on Friday, I’ve played a lot with its Internet features. I’ve enjoyed surfing the Web and checking e-mail with it.

But here, too, I’ve run into frustrations. I knew the iPhone’s browser wouldn’t be able to access content on the Web that’s in some of the most popular formats, such as Flash applications and Windows Media files.

But it even had trouble playing a couple of slide shows in Apple’s QuickTime format on my Web site; I even made them on my iMac at home using iPhoto and iMovie.

The iPhone has been dubbed the “Jesus phone,” but I certainly didn’t expect it to be perfect. While I’ve had a great time playing with it, I didn’t realize until I got it how much it fell short.

Troy Wolverton writes the Tech Files column and covers consumer technology as the personal technology columnist for the Bay Area News Group. Previously, he covered Apple and the consumer electronics industry. Earlier, he reported on technology, business and financial issues for TheStreet.com and CNET News.com.

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